Earned Value

One of the things at the Shitshow that makes me want to dance on a mine field is the implementation of earned value accounting. Here is a definition of Earned Value Accounting from Wikipedia "is a project management technique for measuring project progress in an objective manner. EVM has the ability to combine measurements of scope, schedule, and cost in a single integrated system. When properly applied, EVM provides an early warning of performance problems. Additionally, EVM promises to improve the definition of project scope, prevent scope creep, communicate objective progress to stakeholders, and keep the project team focused on achieving progress."

This sounds great in principle but the problem is that when you get some flunky like King Kong (or the Zoo Keeper) who cant tell the difference between their asses and a hole in the ground determining the earned value milestones and how many man hours it should take to complete a task, the metrics become worthless and tell you nothing about the overall progress of a program.

What is amazing is that every program or project that I work on is always significantly over budget but they let the Zookeeper and King Kong continuously bid the projects and determine the earned value metrics. It's like Planet of the Apes. The same flunkies who screw up over and over again are always put back in charge with "corrective action" to prevent budget overruns in the future but that never works.

Because I spend all day performing worthless tasks for the sake of poorly thought out earned value that adds no value to the overall product, I throw rocks.